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Tullamore Distillery, Sean's Bar, Clonmacnoise enroute to Galway
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From €950 per person
If you need to travel from Dublin to Galway and want to turn the journey into something memorable, this private chauffeur service transforms a three-hour motorway drive into a full day of whiskey, history, and some of Ireland’s most important heritage sites. You travel in a luxury Mercedes-Benz with a professional driver, stopping at three remarkable locations along the way.
The first stop is Tullamore D.E.W. Distillery in the Irish Midlands, where you can take a tour of the production facility and enjoy a tasting of their triple-distilled, triple-blend whiskey. From Tullamore, you continue to Athlone and Sean’s Bar - recognised as Ireland’s oldest pub, with records stretching back over a thousand years. The walls of this place have absorbed more stories than most history books, and a pint or a whiskey here feels like a genuine connection to Ireland’s past.
Before reaching Galway, you stop at Clonmacnoise, a 6th-century monastic settlement on the banks of the River Shannon. The high crosses, round towers, and ruined churches here are among the most important early Christian sites in Europe, and the setting - overlooking the river and the flat Shannon floodplain - is hauntingly beautiful. You arrive in Galway having experienced a cross-section of Ireland that most visitors never see, all from the comfort of a luxury vehicle with WiFi, water, and phone chargers.
At Tullamore D.E.W. - the distillery sits on Bury Quay, where the Grand Canal barges once loaded whiskey for Dublin. After your tasting, it’s worth a ten-minute walk along the canal towpath west from the quay - flat, quiet, and the town drops away fast. If you’d prefer to eat here rather than in Athlone, Old Warehouse on Bury Quay is built into an actual old warehouse and does tasting menus worth booking ahead.
At Clonmacnoise - there are no pubs or restaurants at the site itself, so eat before or after rather than hoping to find something nearby. The monastery is deliberately isolated - the emptiness is the point. Come before the coach tours arrive in summer, or visit in autumn when the Shannon begins to flood the surrounding callows and turns the site into something close to an island. The grounds walk takes about an hour; start at the 10th-century cathedral, move to the Round Tower of the Scribes, and stand at the Cross of the Scriptures long enough to read the carved panels. The grave slabs in the grass are worth more time than most people give them.
At Sean’s Bar in Athlone - the pub sits a few hundred yards from Athlone Castle, and the town rewards a slow hour between the two. If you’re hungry after the pint, Thyme on Church Street has held a Michelin Bib Gourmand for eight consecutive years, or the Fatted Calf on the same street is the other reason midlands diners make the drive. Park at the castle car park and walk the old town rather than driving the stone lanes.
Timing - Clonmacnoise is the last stop before Galway. If your driver’s schedule allows, arriving there in the late afternoon gives you the softer light and far fewer people on site than the mid-morning coach tour rush.